site.btaTourism Sector Revenues Reach BGN 12 Bln in 2023

The Tourism Ministry is preparing an analysis of the marketing programme, which the municipalities had the opportunity to benefit from in 2024, said Deputy Tourism Minister Pavlin Petrov in Burgas on Thursday during a conference on sustainable tourism. The conference was organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation together with Burgas Municipality.

"We are currently preparing an analysis to see what the effects are and whether this programme will continue to be implemented next year in the same form", Petrov said and emphasized that similar tools to help with marketing funds are of particular importance for municipalities and the tourism business. He added that the most effective way of this programme must be found, so that the business and the municipalities are as satisfied as possible with the results.

Petrov presented data according to which revenues from the tourism sector in Bulgaria in 2023 reached BGN 12 billion, which represents about 6.9% of GDP for this period. The total number of people employed in tourism and related subsectors was 283,000. For the first nine months of 2024, 7.5 million tourists visited Bulgaria, which represents an increase compared to the same period of 2023 by almost 4%. Bulgarian tourists were 4.1 million, followed by nearly 900,000 Romanian, 300.000 Polish and 220.000 German tourists.

Petrov noted that festival and conference tourism are increasingly present in Bulgarian seaside resorts, even outside the active summer tourist season. He pointed out that the tourism industry has a huge potential for accelerated development and even upgrading the results achieved before the pandemic, but well-thought-out and high-quality advertising is needed to achieve the goal.

He stressed that the positive messages and the positive attitude of the sector builds a more attractive Bulgaria brand, adding that the country already has a large base of hotels with conference rooms, which should be used even more actively to attract visitors.